Best Data Science Courses, Certifications, & Training

The demand for data scientists and data analysts grows with each passing year. To get a job in the data science field, you have to master certain skills. Skills like how to manage data and provide the right business solutions from it.

With abundant data science courses present all over the internet, we have compiled a list of the 16 best online certification programs in order to help you hone your skills and kick start your career in data science.

Yet not all data science courses are created equal. Many just scratch the surface and do not provide you with all the needed knowledge to be able to start or further your career from them.

The 16 Best Data Science Courses below were chosen because they fulfill the criteria of being in-depth, delivered by some of the world’s best data science experts, and are delivered online for convenience.

Data Science Courses and Certifications

1. Data Science Specialization

This specialization offered by the Johns Hopkins University, is one of the most popular courses on Coursera. It starts off with an introduction to R Studio. It covers the basics of Github and other basic tools to conduct data science research. It has a good introduction to the fundamentals of data science, and it builds a solid foundation to the rest of the course.

The course will give you comprehensive knowledge of R and dig into more complex topics. Besides that, you will also practice in Swirl packages. This course covers topics like multivariate statistical techniques and all the important aspects of research for data scientists.

You will learn about Regress models, which also offers an overall introduction to Machine Learning. Apart from that, you will also learn how to build packages, methods, classes and learn to create your applications. The instructor provides detailed explanations with examples, for easy understanding. At the end of the course, you will be familiar with fundamentals of statistics and will be able to create a data product and build your packages.

This specialization offers a step by step detailed explanation to set up your environment. You will learn a lot about command-line programming and the working of Git. A well-designed course structure to learn data science in-depth which is useful for data analysts and data scientists.

Who Should Take This Course?

This is one of the best courses to carve your career in Data Science. If you are a beginner wanting to specialize in Data Science, this course is a perfect fit for you. The course strengthens your basics in data science and moves your way through to advanced topics.

Course Highlights

Challenging programming assignments and quizzes

You will learn data science from scratch and dive into more advanced concepts

A capstone project to test your Data Analytics skills

2. Statistics and Data Science

This course provides master level experience to solving complex data challenges. It provides a foundation of statistics, data science and machine learning. The course also guides to build a machine learning model and to extract meaningful information for decision making. It also covers making unstructured data to a structured format with supervised and unsupervised methods including clustering methods and deep learning techniques.

This course is offered by the MIT faculty at a similar pace and level of rigor, providing hands-on training with high-quality curricula to learn around the world. The course starts off with Introduction to Statistics, and dives deep into data analysis using statistical methods and the implementation of machine learning algorithms.

This is a five-level graduate course with 600-840 hours of effort including assignments and exams. On completing this course, you will be prepared for job interviews in the roles of Data Scientist, Business Analyst, Business Intelligence Analyst and Data Engineer.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is for professionals who want to start their career in the field of data science. It is designed for those who want to acquire rigorous training in data science without leaving their day job but without compromising quality. There is no application process, but college-level calculus and comfort with mathematical reasoning and Python programming are highly recommended if you want to excel.

Course Highlights

Earn credits to pursue a full master’s degree in the relevant field from top universities

Certified micro masters professional with advanced knowledge on analytics

A capstone to have hands-on experience to test the concepts

3. Become a Data Scientist

Codecademy is an online platform which offers interactive online courses for Data Science. This course is a great start for your career. It hones your skills in data science and ensures you think like a real programmer.

In this online data science program, you will learn the tools for Data Analysts and get familiarized with data sets. You will also learn the basic syntax of the SQL language and dive deeper into more concepts. This tutorial also covers the tools to be used in SQL toolset and helps writing your queries and moves to more advanced concepts.

Furthermore, you will gain more knowledge in the workings of Python. You will learn the basic functions like abstraction, loops, and lists in Python which strengthens your fundamentals in the Python language. This online section also covers python libraries like NumPy, SciPy, and Pandas. The course is well designed and makes sure you are familiar with common concepts before diving into data visualization and its working by real-world datasets.

Combining all this knowledge, you will create your project and gain knowledge on the main concepts like big data, python, machine learning and artificial intelligence, which a data scientist job requires. By the end of this, you will have the practical experience to kick start your career in Data Science.

Who Should Take This Course?

If you want to become a Data Scientist or Data Analyst, this course is the right choice for you. This program doesn’t require any prior knowledge in Data Science, and the course starts from scratch. Enrolling in this course will offer you lots of insights into databases and the use of machine learning algorithms. One of the best online data science programs to land a job as a Data Scientist.

Course Highlights

You will create multiple projects to gain experience and familiarity in the concepts learned

You will be able to land yourself a job as a data scientist

4. Applied Data Science with Python Specialization

This course is one of the popular courses offered by the University of Michigan to learn Data Science with the use of the Python language. This intermediate level course requires basic knowledge of Python to be able to start off with Applied Data Science.

You will be introduced to the techniques on Scikit-learn, Matplotlib, and Numpy, which are the basic tools needed to gain statistical inferences.

It has five courses introducing you to the fundamentals of Data Science and how it can be applied to Python. The next phase takes you to Exploratory Data Analysis and Visualization.

The third course is on Applied Machine Learning using Python.

The 4th and 5th course takes you to advanced techniques upon completion of which you will gain a certificate. It also provides young with a hands-on project through which to test the skills and concepts and providing practical experience to solve a business problem.

Around 98,946 students have enrolled for this course and improved their data science skills. Stats show that 36% of the students enrolled in this program started a new career, 38% received career benefits, while 25% of the learners got promoted or received a raise in pay.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is for people who have basic knowledge of Python and who want to shift their career to the field of data science and analytics. Enrolling in this will help you gain insight in statistics and its implementation in the business world.

Course Highlights

Earn a certificate to showcase your skills to a professional network

Gain knowledge on the concepts and techniques of statistics and data analysis

5. Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp

Jose Portilla is one of the top instructors on Udemy and has years of experience in data science and programming. This course by Jose, is one of the best sellers and has about 228,000 students.

He is an excellent tutor who has publications and patents in various fields such as microfluidics, material science, and data science technologies. This is one of the highly recommended courses on Udemy for data science with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5.

This is a beginner friendly course and in it you will learn to use Python in data science and machine learning. This course covers how to implement machine learning algorithms and use Python libraries like NumPy, Pandas, Seaborn, Matplotlib, Plotly and Scikit-Learn.
Jose also gives an overview of machine learning and explains the mathematics behind the machine learning algorithm.

At the end of each module practice assignments are provided to apply the concepts you learned. The course also covers topics such as clustering and linear regression. Also explained are the basics of natural language processing and deep learning with the tensor flow.

By the end of this course, you will learn to create amazing interactive visualization and implement machine learning algorithms in your projects. The course is comprised of 149 lectures which span over a period of 22 hours and 29 minutes.

Who Should Take This Course?

This well-structured course is perfect for you if you want to learn data science from scratch. It is required that you be familiar with any type of programming language. This beginner level course is also useful for experienced professionals who want to enhance their career by learning data science.

Course Highlights

Lots of examples on data analysis and machine learning

Course completion certificate

6. HarvardX’s Data Science

EdX is a popular platform which offers online courses for software developers. This course is one of the highly recommended data science programs offered by Harvard University. It is an expert level course offering hands-on experience on R programming.

The course is taught by Rafael Irizarry, professor of Biostatistics at Harvard University. He is an expert in Genomics, Data Analysis and R. He is also an excellent tutor and has developed software projects for the analysis of genomic data.

The program covers knowledge based on real-time dataset with probability, inferences, linear regression and machine learning models to develop your essential skill set in this domain. With R Studio, it includes data packages like dplyr, data exploration through the visualization packages like ggplot2, file conversion through Unix/Linux and version control through git and github.

This intense course has 9-graduate level courses spanning over 184 hours of learning. The course also involves assignments with allowing the student to progress at their own speed.

It provides in-depth knowledge on use cases based on the real world, with fundamental concepts in data science.

In each phase of the course, you are introduced to relevant real time cases through data analysis, including trends in World Health and Economics, US Crime Rates, the financial crisis of 2007-2008, election forecasting, building a baseball team and many more interesting cases.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is perfect for those who want to start their career as a certified data scientist. If you’re looking for a data science tutorial where you can work on practical problems while simultaneously applying the conceptual knowledge, this course is an ideal choice for you.

Course Highlights

Analytics with the R programming language which is highly demanded by the business market

Capstone and hands on projects to gain meaningful insights from the concepts learnt

Certificate with the chance of participating as a researcher about learning

7. Data Science – EdX

Another highly recommended course in data science from EdX, this is a micro-master program to help you develop an understanding of mathematical and computational tools to perform basics in data analysis.

It is a combination of mathematics and statistics, as well as machine learning techniques with the use of relevant tools like Python and toolkits like Numpy, Matplotlib and Scipy, with Apache Spark.

The course starts right from the basics of data collection, cleaning and analysis, using data sources and providing better results through data visualization tools and techniques. It covers 4 courses in the program with 8-10 hours spent per week for 10-15 weeks. The course is provided by the University of California, San Diego by some of the best professors in this field.

By the end of this course, you would have learned to work with data and make reliable statistical data inferences from noisy data. You will also be able to use data visualization tools to display presentable complex data. The knowledge in data science you will acquire will have a career impact and help you in your career advancement.

Who Should Take This Course?

This is designed as a basic course which covers 30% of the full master’s degree. If you want to gain a degree, this course is perfect for you. Completing the course will help you get started towards a degree which requires 400 credits for the full graduation.

Course Highlights

Covers 30% of the master’s program which helps in earning a certificate as a specialist

This provides eligibility to apply for Masters of Predictive Analytics program at Curtin University

8. The Data Science Course 2019: Complete Data Science Bootcamp

Udemy provides this course with the entire kit you need to become a data scientist. The course provides relevant skills to start with. It is a 24 hours on-demand video course with 88 articles and many other relevant resources.

This course is relevant if you want to attract a recruiter, as it has almost everything that is required to land a career as a data analyst. In the course you will learn Python and statistical analysis with Numpy, Pandas, Matplotlib, and Seaborn.

The course also covers advanced techniques in machine learning like statistical tools with Scikit-learn, including deep learning with TensorFlow.

It starts with key concepts of Python coding and how to use statistical analysis to do clustering and factor analysis, regression models and machine learning algorithms which are most wanted in this world of big data.

It also covers algorithms like overfitting, underfitting, n-fold cross-validation, testing and tuning the hyperparameters, to improve the model with real-life datasets providing better learning experiences.

This data science course includes 469 lectures which span over 27 hours and 45 minutes. Around 104,383 students have enrolled for the course and it has a rating of 4.5 out of 5. A very informative course with real world examples to learn about data science and sharpen your skills.

Who Should Take This Course?

If you have no prior experience, this course is an ideal choice for you as it starts from scratch. Installation of Anaconda and Excel is all that is required to begin the course. This course is the right choice for you if you want to kick start your career in data science.

Course Highlights

Easy for beginners as it relates mathematics, statistics with the core techniques in data science.

It trains you on how to think like a data scientist/business analyst and to work on inferences that will get you a job.

9. Online Master of Science in Data Analytics

This is an intensive course provided by Northern Illinois University designed according to your flexible work hours to either study part-time or full-time.

The course runs over a 12-month period, with 10 months required, to complete and earn a joint certificate by NIU-SAS. This school offers 100% online courses with highest business standards. They also provide full time classes with 30 students in a class to support the individuals.

The course provides you with SAS Data Analytics Certification and hands on experience in big-data technologies like Hadoop, Python, SAP Predictive Analytics, Tableau and more. This curriculum is recognized internationally, providing much more value to the course.

The course has two phases: One takes you through business statistics and information systems while the second phase provides courses on operations and supply chain analytics using SAS, business applications through RDBMS, text mining, advanced predictive analytics and statistics with business intelligence tools and techniques.

This course is extremely beneficial in order for you to become an expert in data and giving you the opportunity to complete this degree of Master of Science in Data Analytics through online means.

Who Should Take This Course?

If you are looking to have in-depth experience in all the aspects of data science and analytics, this course is perfect for you. On completion of this course you will have knowledge in data mining and data engineering concepts, which will help you land a job as a market analyst, data engineer or business intelligence analyst.

Course Highlights

Covers all the aspects and tools required to be a qualified data scientist

Provides classes to address queries with 24*7 assistance

10. Doing Data Science with Python

Pluralsight is an online education platform which offers a lot of courses for software developers and IT professionals. This well-structured course in data science was designed by Abhishek Kumar. He is a data science consultant and has a master’s in information and data science. He has a lot of experience and has worked on many machine learning and deep learning projects.

This course provides data science concepts with hands-on Python experience. It starts with the essentials of Python providing exposure to Github and how to add programs on Github. He also teaches with datasets like Titanic and how to start with statistical techniques including hypothesis testing using Pandas, and Numpy in Python.

Data exploration and pre-processing, with exploratory data analysis for categorical and continuous data, with univariate and bivariate distribution plots are taught, providing clear and precise understanding of data through analysis.

Every step of analytics, feature engineering and feature selection, with basics to advanced concepts of machine learning to deep learning is covered, together with all the important concepts.

Overall this course provides end-to-end data science concepts with programs to build, process and evaluate machine learning models using API, and using Python libraries. You can start with a 10-day free trial, after which you continue the course with payment.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is perfect for aspiring data scientists to tackle end to end projects through machine learning models with real data solutions. If you want to have a solid foundation in handling data science projects and provide solutions, this course is the best place to get started.

Course Highlights

Provides end-to-end concepts with industrial applications

Covers beginners and advanced level techniques in the same course

11. Become a Data Scientist – LinkedIn Learning

This course offers a perfect roadmap to becoming a data scientist. You are provided with an 8 series course, clubbed together to form the best learning path on LinkedIn learning. These courses are taught by experts who have years of experience in data science.

This learning path includes 17 hours of course content, and in this course, you will learn about the abundant career opportunities present in the growing data science field and determine the right course for the career you desire. You will learn the fundamentals of data science and statistics foundations.

Apart from that, you will also learn about data governance and how to manage, maintain, monitor, and measure your program. You will also learn about data mining and its technique to collect, search, and filter raw data. Furthermore, this course covers topics like how to analyse and manage data in the shortest period.

In this course, the instructor makes complex data presentable which increases the effectiveness of communication. All topics are explained in detail and the classes are easy to follow.

Who Should Take This Course?

It doesn’t matter whether you are an IT professional or not. If you are interested in learning data science and want to become a data scientist, this course is a perfect fit for you. Enrolling in this course will provide a strong foundation in statistics.

Course Highlights

Taught by experts in data Science

Learning path offers a roadmap on what to study next

12. Master of Science in Data Science Online

This course is offered by Cabrini University, and is for those who aspire to become data scientists in this data-driven world. This program provides exposure to gain essential skills to prepare the student for any job related to business analytics and data mining.

A student with Computer Science or a related technology as their foundation, would be ideal candidates to take up this course, as it provides basics in technology in order to better understand data and data systems and to analyse data with the use of technology. It is offered online and provides a flexible time schedule to support the working professional who wants to advance their career in this field.

This course trains students to become experts in top coding languages like Python, Java, and SQL which are necessary for the industry. It also teaches in how to become proficient in tools like Tableau, SAS, Hadoop, and Apache Spark.

This is a two-year course providing a capstone project for real-world applications. Students with strong mathematics and computer knowledge in their undergraduate years are required to take up this course. It covers topics such as relational RDBMS to relate concepts with data storage, mathematics for data science, programming and project management.

The course starts with concepts and techniques of data analytics in business, data visualization and natural language processing, with a Capstone project providing internship experience.

Who Should Take This Course?

The course is for students who have an undergraduate degree in Computer Science or its relevant technology like DBMS or OOPs. Students with mathematics and statistics knowledge are also eligible to take up this course and move to related careers in data science.

Course Highlights

13. Data Science A-Z™: Real-Life Data Science Exercises Included

Another best-selling course on Udemy by Kirill Eremenko. He is a data science management consultant who is passionate about data science. This is a great course which is highly recommended. Kirill starts with explanations of the basic tools for data science. You will learn to handle and manage data more productively.

Kirill explains each concept in a step by step manner with real world practical examples. He also explains the fundamentals of data science and covers data mining, modelling including Tableau visualization with real-world examples. He also explains how to use SQL, SSIS, Tableau, and Gretl, and shows best practices to use these tools to attain the desired results.

By the end of this course, you would have learned to maintain your data and deal with text qualifier errors in RAW data. You will also learn to display presentable data using data visualization techniques. Around 106,587 students have enrolled for this course and it has a high rating by 19,893 students. It includes 213 lectures and contain over 21 hours of course content with challenging assignments.

Who Should Take This Course?

If you are a novice looking to start your career in the field of data science, then this course is an ideal choice for you. The course will provide a strong foundation in the fundamentals of data science and will improve your data mining and statistical modeling skills to become a data science professional.

Course Highlights

Prior experience is not needed

Challenging practical exercises

14. Mathematics for Machine Learning Specialization

Another beginner level course from Coursera offered by Imperial Course London, with around 30,795 students enrolled for the course. This specialization has 3 modules. In the first module you will learn the basic concepts of linear algebra which strengthens your understanding in foundational concepts. You will also learn about the workings of vectors and matrices.

The second module offers an overview of multivariate calculus and how to easily understand backpropagation. You will also learn basic concepts used in optimization. In the last module, you will learn more complex concepts and understand the math behind Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This course requires basic Python and Numpy knowledge.

By the end of this module, you would have learned to implement PCA and advanced math skills that are required for machine learning and data science. Another highly recommended course on Coursera to be taken before enrolling for data science courses. It also has stats showing that about 33% of developers who enrolled in this course found a new career.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is a perfect place to start improving your math skills which are a prerequisite for most of the data science and machine learning programs. If you are looking for a career in the data science field, this course will help you brush up on the required skills needed to get started in data science and machine learning.

Course Highlights

Easily understandable with real-life examples

Practice assignments with challenging quizzes

Improves your math skills starting from linear algebra

15. Online Master’s Degree In Data Science

This course offers a master’s degree in Data Science from Drexel University. It is designed for working professionals who want to pursue a career in the field of data science. It is a combination of computer science and information systems.

The data is analysed further into data and text mining to develop a story to make business decisions with better clarity and accuracy. This course is comprised of elective tracks, to be chosen based on the interest in analytics, visualization and management.

On learning this course you will be ready to solve business problems at your workplace in real-time industry. The program is made to build a foundation in statistics with computer skills, to propel business with data-driven decision making. It is a combination of applied training and computational problems that helps in solving with analysis.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is perfect for professionals who aspire to be data scientists and business analysts. If you want to study data science and land a job in analytics, this course is an ideal choice for you.

Course Highlights

16. IBM Data Science Professional Certificate

This is a highly rated data science program on Coursera. This online professional certification program is offered by experts from one of the leading multinational companies, IBM. It is a beginner level course and has around 65,685 students.

The course consists of 9 modules, and the instructor explains the fundamentals of data science. The course also provides a clear and concise overview of data science tools and exposes you to Jupyter Notebooks, RStudio IDE, Apache Zeppelin amongst others. Furthermore, you will also learn the methodology behind data science and will understand each step of the data science process.

Also covered are the fundamentals of Python, how Python is used in data science and artificial intelligence. The instructor also shows the workings of data in Python and how to read and write files in Python. Apart from that, you will learn to analyse data with Python.

The course also exposes you to data analysis libraries like Pandas, Numpy and Scipy, in order to work with a sample dataset. This program also introduces to common graphs, charts and map techniques to present data visually. Data visualization libraries like Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Folium are also explored.

This course comes highly recommended, and you will explore each concept in data science with practical examples. By the end of this course you will program a capstone project and will learn to use the Foursquare API and apply much you have learned in this course.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is perfect for students who has zero experience in the data science field. If you are a novice, wanting to get started in data science, this course is the best option for you. The instructors start data science from scratch and move to more advanced concepts. This course is also a perfect choice for you if you want to be a certified data scientist.

Course Highlights

You will earn a professional certificate on data science by IBM

Content taught by professionals

You will learn to create your own project

Real-life examples of machine learning

Why Pursue a Career in Data Science?

With data science being a trending career option in this decade, the demand and opportunities for a data scientist and business analyst are huge. In today’s workplace, data is everywhere and learning data science has become the de-facto standard to solve analytical problems in a business.

Learning data science helps in understanding business logic. With the adoption of machine learning in various fields, learning data science offers endless opportunities for different roles in any type of industry.

Though the demand for a data scientist is high, so is the competition. To master your skills in data science, enrol in a course and gain a better understanding of each concept in this lucrative field.

Conclusion

In this fast-growing field, becoming a skilled data scientist takes time. But finding the right course is the first step in becoming an expert in data science.

In our comprehensive list of the best data science certification programs, enroll in the most suitable course based on your skill set to become a data scientist or business analyst professional. With data science making its ways into all sectors the opportunity keeps increasing. Hope you find the right course to get started and carve your career in the data science field.